**REVIEW** Caribbean Roots Black Castor Oil by Aveya Beauty

Remember back when your mom or grandma made you take a spoonful of castor oil every so often? No? Okay, maybe that's just me. And I will never forget how I hated seeing that spoon coming at me!

If you are too young to remember stuff like that, then I have to tell you something: no matter how I hated it, I have learned that Mom and Grandma knew what they were doing. Castor oil is one of those things that is good for you, inside and out. My elders used it as a moisturizer, a "hairdress" (treatment), a lip balm, and a remedy for constipation. Being young back then, I wanted nothing to do with it. It tasted horrible and, besides, I preferred the cute little tubes for my lip balm.

Flash forward all these years and I'm back on the castor oil. I still haven't gotten a taste for ingesting it, but I have discovered the benefits of using it externally. I'll get to that in a minute. For now, let's talk about this:

Aveya Beauty produces this Black Castor Oil that smells better than what I remember from my childhood. Actually, I have tried a couple other brands of black castor oil since those days so I can compare this one to what I have used before. Looks like Aveya has some other quality products I'd like to try (I'm already trying another product of theirs).

I'll cover some more castor oil info in a moment, but about this one:

• There is the faintest of scents to it (you'll see why this matters to some folks in a moment)
• It's one of the first "heavier" oils that I've been able to use right out of the bottle without having it just sit on top of my skin. It soaks in so quickly that I carry it in my purse use it during the day. If I wait just a few moments, it has absorbed enough that it doesn't smudge papers or clothing.
• I love what it does for my hair. Applied to damp hair, it seals the ends so that I don't get so much frizz once the hair is dried.
• Because of the nice absorbency, I can use this on my face without getting a lot of buildup. Best thing is, it makes a really nice oil cleanser if I mix in a little bit of fractionated coconut oil and use wipe with a baby wipe.
• After I had been using it as a hand moisturizer, I noticed that my nails and cuticles were getting a lot of the benefits. At their driest, the sides of my nails get that ashy white look from the dead and damaged skin because I wash my hands a lot. I'm planning to do a cuticle scrub with this oil, using it and a little bit of baking soda and an old toothbrush. Then, I will re-moisturize with the oil. Can't wait.
• Speaking of scrubs, I have been using sugar and another oil to exfoliate my lips. After the next lip treatment, I'm going to balm up with this castor oil. I plan to do a heavy coating of the oil and let it rest a while before I smooth it into my lips.
• Because I am noticing that it doesn't take a lot of this oil for regular uses (even the above lip treatment shouldn't take much), I'm happy with the size of the bottle. At first, I was wishing it had come in a little bit bigger size for the price, but it's working out to be a good value after all. (By the way, the label even instructs users not to use more than needed. That's a nice change from the old "wash-rinse-repeat world" method used to keep consumers coming back for more.

There is one gripe I have, but it has nothing to do with the quality of the product. It's the printing on the label. Other than the front, all the other print is so small that I actually had to use a magnifier app to read it... Seriously. And the label includes some good info - such as suggestions for how to use the oil and/or mix it with other products. 

To save you some squinting, here are the benefits listed on the label:

• Increase hair growth
• Thicken hair that's starting to thin
• Reduce and prevent hair breakage
• Eliminate dry hair
• Make hair fuller and shinier
• Deeply condition and moisturize hair and scalp
• Prevent dry scalp
• Boost your hair's overall growth.

Some of that is a bit repetitive, but it matches what I have been reading about the benefits of castor oil. One other thing I'd like to point out is that I don't personally find there is much difference in benefits between a good "regular" castor oil and a good JBCO. That's just my opinion though and other people might have a different take.

If you are buying via Amazon, Aveya discounts a limited amount of this product on a monthly basis, so there's your chance to give it a try. (The Aveya site offers what they call an "iron clad, bullet-proof guarantee".)

Now here goes some more general information about castor oils:

If you have checked out castor oil recently, you might notice that there are a few popular types out there:

• Castor oil - has a yellow-ish coloring unless it's filtered to a clearer shade.
• Black castor oil - gets its dark color from the ash of roasted beans
• Jamaican black castor oil - I don't know for a fact but, since not all JBCOs come from Jamaica, the name comes from the process, which is, I am guessing, a Jamaican invention. (This Aveya black castor oil, for instance, is a product of Haiti.)

 By the way, Black Hair Information offers up a wonderful history and some info on castor oil & JBCO. Glad I found BHI, which is now bookmarked.

The big difference in castor oils, other than the color, is the smell. The JBCO has a odor that a lot of people don't like (I do). BHI describes it perfectly as having the scent of burnt seeds.  "Regular" castor oil has a faint, well, oily scent, in my opinion, but lots of people claim it's odorless. Even though the JBCO does have a smell you might find unpleasant, I found that the odor dissipates very quickly. As for ingesting castor oil, it's not my favorite thing to do but, like I mentioned at the start, my elders were big on getting a little bit of it into the body for, um, cleaning things out... LOL

Here are some links to more info:

• Covers most of the benefits as listed on the label
• Interesting to see what the Times of India site says
• Some not-so-common uses
• Home Remedies lists some uses and warnings
• Black Naps (love that name!) has some great info about using castor oil on natural hair

Sure hope I gave you some good info - or lead you to it - if you have been thinking about using a castor oil in your beauty routine.

Peace

--Free

DISCLOSURE: I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.